Comeygate

Trump’s Official Response to Comey Doesn’t Add Up

President Trump's personal attorney Marc Kasowitz delivers a statement to the press in Washington, D.C., June 8, 2017.

By Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images.

The Senate testimony of James Comey, while packed with dramatic moments, was, in some ways, a letdown after a week of media hype. The former F.B.I. director, who was fired by Donald Trump last month, effectively laid out the evidence that the president had attempted to obstruct justice but did not make the case himself. He confirmed various reports about the bureau’s investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia but did not reveal much new information. Still, as is frequently the case with Trump, the president’s response to Comey’s testimony was potentially even more scandalous than the testimony itself.

Shortly after the conclusion of Comey’s public comments Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, held a brief press conference to rebut Comey’s testimony. He made a series of misleading statements about the Russia investigation, accused the former F.B.I. chief of committing perjury, suggested that he should be investigated for leaking classified information, and then left without taking any questions.

Understanding the ways in which the White House appears to be seeking to reframe Comey’s statements requires a close reading of Kasowitz’s typo-ridden statement, as prepared for delivery. The president’s longtime personal lawyer begins by noting that “Mr. Comey has now finally confirmed publicly what he repeatedly told the president privately: The president was not under investigation as part of any probe into Russian interference.” This is, strictly speaking, true. Comey testified that he had told the president he was not under investigation at the time he was asked but declined to make the same point publicly because he was concerned that he would then have to issue a correction were that status to change. But in Kasowitz’s next sentences, he begins to bend the truth:

Mr. Comey’s testimony also makes clear that the president never sought to impede the investigation into attempted Russian interference in the 2016 election, and, in fact, according to Mr. Comey, the president told Mr. Comey “it would be good to find out” in that investigation if there were “some ‘satellite’ associates of his who did something wrong.”

Comey never claimed that Trump pressured him to drop the bureau’s investigation into Russian election meddling; instead, he testified that Trump asked him if he could “see your way to letting this go,” referring specifically to the inquiry into Trump’s former national security adviser Mike Flynn. Pressed by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey noted that he interpreted Trump’s request as “a direction” that “this is what he wants me to do.”

According to Kasowitz, Trump never said those words—which would mean that Comey had committed perjury. “The president never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that that Mr. Comey ‘let Flynn go,’ ” he said. He also denied that Trump had never demanded Comey’s “loyalty,” as the F.B.I. director testified. “The president also never told Mr. Comey, ‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty’ in form or substance.” That statement, however, directly conflicts with public comments by Trump’s own former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who told Fox News earlier this week that the president had, in fact, made such a request. “What the president asked for was loyalty to the country, and loyalty to make sure that the American people have the justice system that they want,” he told host Tucker Carlson. “That's not unheard of. That's not uncalled for.”

The thrust of the Kasowitz’s response borrowed the Trump team’s well-worn tactic of trying to turn unsavory headlines for the White House into a discussion about improper intelligence leaks to the press. “It is overwhelmingly clear that there have been and continue to be those in government who are actively attempting to undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications,” Kasowitz said in a statement. “Mr. Comey has now admitted that he is one of these leakers.”

During Thursday’s hearing, Comey did testify that he had asked a friend of his—who has been identified as Daniel Richman, a law professor at Columbia University—to share the content of a contemporaneous memo he had penned detailing his highly controversial one-on-one interaction with Trump, during which Comey said the president asked him about “letting Flynn go.” Comey said his sharing of the memo was prompted by a Twitter rant in which the president wrote that the F.B.I. director “better hope there are no ‘tapes’ ” of their private conversations.

But Kasowitz’s claim that this proves Comey leaked classified information is flawed. While Comey did testify that some aspects of the memos he wrote recording his interactions with Trump were classified, during an exchange with Senator Mark Warner, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey explicitly stated that the memo detailing his conversation with Trump about Mike Flynn deliberately did not contain classified information. “I remember thinking, this is a very disturbing development, really important to our work. I need to document it and preserve it in a way and this committee gets this, but sometimes when things are classified, it tangles them up,” Comey explained.

Perhaps most important, Kasowitz and Comey don’t seem to be on the same page when it comes to the critical question of whether the president may now be under investigation for obstruction of justice. According to Trump’s lawyer, “It is now established that the president was not being investigated for colluding with the Russians or attempting to obstruct that investigation.” But Comey only informed Trump that he was not personally being investigated at the time of their conversation—which does not rule out the possibility that Trump may now be under investigation. Comey also said he was “sure” that Robert Mueller, the former F.B.I. director now serving as special counsel in the F.B.I. investigation, was now looking into the matter as part of his probe. As a better lawyer than Kasowitz could explain to the president, in politics the cover-up is often worse than the crime.